Corona-chan

Corona-chan (Japanese: コロナちゃん) is a moe anthropomorphization of the coronavirus which became a popular meme on 4chan, Reddit and other websites during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.[1]

In mid-January 2020, 4chan users created the Corona-chan character as a girl with bat wings and green eyes[2] wearing a red cheongsam, an item of traditional Chinese clothing,[3] with thorny spheres for hair buns, symbolizing the virus. In some representations, she holds the flag of China and hands out bat soup.[4] These features reference the popular bat soup and Wuhan lab theories for the origin of the virus. Vice Media reporter Samantha Cole said that "Turning a virus that's killed nearly 8,000 people, especially in China and Japan, into a cute anime girl is insensitive to that reality... but it's also a way people have chosen to cope using gallows humor and a horny anime drawing".[5] On 4chan, a user made a thread titled “All hail, Peng Zhou, creator of Corona-Chan”, linking to an article by Zero Hedge, claiming that the new coronavirus may have been created by the Wuhan Institute of Virology, at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.[6] As a pun, she was also often represented holding or drinking a Corona beer.[5]

The subreddit "r/coronachan", which features illustrations of the character, had 2,000 subscriptions by 2020.[5] There are Corona-chan galleries on the Internet.[7] Lushsux created a wall graffiti showing the coronavirus Corona-chan standing behind a mask-wearing PewDiePie.[8]

Moe anthropomorphism had been applied to diseases online before: during the Ebola virus outbreak of West Africa in 2014, the character of Ebola-chan was already circulating on image boards and online discussion forums in the English-speaking world.

  1. ^ 新型コロナウイルスを擬人化だと？ 「受け入れられない」と怒り＝中国メディア. Searchina. 2020-02-24. Archived from the original on 2020-07-19. Retrieved 2020-03-20.
  2. ^ Jones, Tiffany (21 August 2020). Bent Street 4.1 Love from a Distance. Clouds of Magellan. ISBN 9780648746942.
  3. ^ Rafael, Simone (2020-03-27). "Rechtsterroristische Akzelerationisten: Hurra, diese Welt geht unter". Belltower.News. Archived from the original on 2020-10-30. Retrieved 2020-03-27.
  4. ^ Lin Xiaoshan (2020-02-07). "【武汉疫情】武汉肺炎被拟人化 防疫宣导需要"亲民"还是"庄重"". 多維新聞. Archived from the original on 2020-08-30. Retrieved 2020-03-20.
  5. ^ a b c Cole, Samantha (2020-03-19). "As Coronavirus Spreads, Artists Are Coping With Waifus and Fursona Art". Vice Media. Archived from the original on 2020-09-13. Retrieved 2020-03-20.
  6. ^ Broderick, Ryan (2020-01-31). "A Pro-Trump Blog Doxed A Chinese Scientist It Falsely Accused Of Creating The Coronavirus As A Bioweapon". BuzzFeed. Archived from the original on 2020-02-10. Retrieved 2020-03-20.
  7. ^ 奶茶妹 (2020-02-07). "【武漢肺炎】32張病毒擬人化插畫 詭異甜笑奉上劇毒蝙蝠湯". 香港01. Archived from the original on 2020-08-29. Retrieved 2020-03-21.
  8. ^ lushsuxの2020年2月25日のツイート、2020年3月20日閲覧。